Standing on the deserted streets of Nagorno-Karabakh on the 20th anniversary of his inauguration, Azerbaijan\u2019s Ilham Aliyev said he had achieved the \u201csacred goal\u201d of his presidency: reclaiming the land taken from his father. <\/p>\n
Azerbaijan had for decades been haunted by the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a tiny Caucasian enclave home to one of the world\u2019s most protracted conflicts. Armenians herald it as the cradle of their civilization, but it lies within Azerbaijan\u2019s borders, like an island in unfriendly seas. <\/p>\n
As separate Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Armenia played nice under Moscow\u2019s watchful eye. But as that empire crumbled, Armenia, then the ascendant power, seized Nagorno-Karabakh from its weaker neighbor in a bloody war in the 1990s. <\/p>\n
The defeat became a \u201cfestering wound\u201d Aliyev promised to heal. But he grew frustrated by diplomatic talks that he believed aimed only \u201cto freeze the conflict.\u201d After decades of \u201cmeaningless and fruitless\u201d summits, from Minsk to Key West, he changed his tack. <\/p>\n
Brute force stepped in where diplomacy had failed. While the conflict remained frozen, Azerbaijan had transformed. Now oil-rich, backed by Turkey and armed to the teeth, it reclaimed a third of Nagorno-Karabakh in a 44-day war in 2020, stopped only by a Russian-brokered ceasefire. <\/p>\n
But the agreement proved brittle and, in September, Azerbaijan struck again. Unable to resist its military might, the Karabakh government surrendered in just 24 hours. The region\u2019s ethnic Armenian population fled within a week, an exodus the European Parliament said amounted to ethnic cleansing \u2013 an allegation Azerbaijan denies. \u201cWe brought peace by war,\u201d Aliyev told a forum this month. <\/p>\n
Whether that peace will be a lasting one is unclear. In Azerbaijan, many fear that the ethnic nationalism and vow of territorial reunification on which Aliyev built his legitimacy is more likely to find new targets than to dissipate. <\/p>\n
And in Armenia, which was left exposed by its weak military and absent allies, the state is struggling to absorb more than 100,000 Karabakh refugees, many of whom say they cannot adjust to their new lives. <\/p>\n
Nonna Poghosyan fled her home in Stepanakert, Karabakh\u2019s capital, with her husband, twin children and elderly parents. They now rent a small apartment in Yerevan, Armenia\u2019s capital. But Poghosyan, who worked as the American University of Armenia\u2019s program coordinator in Stepanakert, said her mind is still in Karabakh. <\/p>\n
Aliyev said the abandoned houses had remained \u201cuntouched,\u201d but videos on social media show Azerbaijani troops vandalizing homes. <\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to imagine it\u2019s been taken by someone else. That\u2019s the house we built for our kids,\u201d said Poghosyan. <\/p>\n
Her children were walking home from school when Azerbaijani rockets struck Stepanakert on September 19. Her husband found them on the roadside and took them to a bomb shelter. When they woke the next day, the government \u2013 the self-styled Republic of Artsakh \u2013 surrendered. Their lives had unraveled overnight. <\/p>\n
They fled their home the next week, along with almost all of the population. By then they were starved and exhausted: Nagorno-Karabakh had been blockaded for 10 months after Azerbaijan cut off the Lachin corridor \u2013 the only road linking the enclave to Armenia proper \u2013 preventing the import of food, medicine and other supplies. <\/p>\n
Now, the road along which necessities were stopped from entering was opened to allow the population to flood out. As tens of thousands fled at once, it took Poghosyan four days to drive from Stepanakert to Yerevan, she said \u2013 a journey that ordinarily took four hours. <\/p>\n
As Armenian citizens, the government in Yerevan welcomed the refugees. But the support it can provide is meager. Poghosyan received a one-off payment of 100,000 Armenian dram (about $250), but she pays 300,000 dram (about $750) in rent. Her family lives off the savings they had put aside for their children\u2019s education, money that will only last a few months. <\/p>\n
The dissolution of the Karabakh government has left Poghosyan without child benefits, her parents without their pensions, her husband \u2013 a former soldier \u2013 without his salary. But she considers herself lucky to have an apartment. \u201cThere are people living in cars. There are people living in school basements, playgrounds,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Gayane Lalabekyan said she wakes every morning to her new apartment in Yerevan and asks herself if she did the right thing. Many Karabakh Armenians, struggling to come to terms with their new lives, wonder what, if anything, they could have done differently. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I see my daughter, her little son; when I see my mother, she\u2019s 72; when I see my son and his wife, they married in July; I see that, if we stayed there, maybe I wouldn\u2019t have them,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
Aliyev said Armenians wishing to remain in Karabakh would have to accept Azerbaijani citizenship. \u201cThey had two chances: Either to integrate with the rest of Azerbaijan or to go to history,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
But, after generations of violence, few Armenians believed they could live safely in Azerbaijan and almost none would submit to rule by the government in Baku, despite Azerbaijan\u2019s insistence that no civilians had been harmed in what it called its \u201canti-terror measures\u201d in the territory. <\/p>\n
\u201cAliyev isn\u2019t a real man, he\u2019s a devil. We can\u2019t trust their promises,\u201d said Lalabekyan. \u201cWe can\u2019t live together.\u201d <\/p>\n
Karabakh Armenians were supposed to be protected by Russian peacekeepers, which deployed to the region under the terms of the Moscow-brokered ceasefire in 2020. <\/p>\n
But the attack came on the heels of a rupture in Armenia\u2019s relations with Russia, after Yerevan grew frustrated that its longtime ally was failing to defend it against Azerbaijani aggression. Feeling it had no choice but to diversify its security apparatus, Armenia began to forge fledgling partnerships with Western countries. <\/p>\n
To Russia, the move was a betrayal. It used the opportunity to wash its hands of its needy neighbor. Unable to funnel resources from its military campaign in Ukraine, and unwilling to anger Azerbaijan and Turkey, Russia stood by as the ceasefire it negotiated was shattered \u2013 though the Kremlin later rejected criticism of its peacekeeping contingent. <\/p>\n
With Russia\u2019s protection absent and Western support merely rhetorical, Karabakh Armenians felt they had no choice but to flee. But accepting this offers scant consolation to Lalabekyan, who said she feels like a stranger in her own country. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhat will we do next? We don\u2019t know who we are. Are we Artsakh citizens or Armenian citizens? We can\u2019t answer this question. We left everything there. We left our souls there.\u201d <\/p>\n
Some cold-eyed observers argue the plight of the Karabakh refugees may be the tragic price of regional peace. As Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, Armenia\u2019s relinquishment of the enclave was a prerequisite for reconciliation. <\/p>\n
But Aliyev has shown little magnanimity in victory. On his first visit to the enclave, he trampled on the Karabakh flag and mocked the Karabakh politicians he had imprisoned as they attempted to flee. <\/p>\n
\u201cIf we really want peace in the region between Azerbaijan and Armenia, you can\u2019t have political prisoners still being in jail while a peace agreement is signed,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
In the weeks after the reconquest of Karabakh, Baku canceled peace talks in Brussels and Washington, citing Western bias against Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, its rhetoric around its territorial ambitions has sharpened. Government documents have referred to Armenia as \u201cwestern Azerbaijan,\u201d a nationalist concept alleging Armenia is built on Azerbaijani land. <\/p>\n
Some hope, however, came on December 7 when Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed to a prisoner exchange \u2013 a deal brokered without Brussels or Washington, but which was welcomed by both. The US said it hoped the exchange would \u201clay the groundwork for a more peaceful and prosperous future.\u201d Armenia also removed its block on Azerbaijan\u2019s candidacy to host the COP29 climate conference next year. <\/p>\n
The biggest sticking point, however, will likely be Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani exclave separated from the mainland by a sliver of southern Armenia. Aliyev hopes to build a \u201cland corridor\u201d that would slice through Armenia, connecting Nakhchivan to Azerbaijan proper. <\/p>\n
Aliyev described the so-called \u201cZangezur\u201d corridor as a \u201chistorical necessity\u201d that \u201cwill happen whether Armenia wants it or not.\u201d <\/p>\n
Armenia is not wholly opposed to the idea, but is refusing to relinquish control over parts of its territory. Last month, it presented a plan to revive the region\u2019s infrastructure, restoring derelict train lines to better connect Armenia with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia, Iran and elsewhere. It hopes to benefit from trade that could not happen during the lengthy hostilities, calling the project the \u201cCrossroads of Peace.\u201d <\/p>\n
But Armenia\u2019s preferences may count for little. Aliyev said in December \u201cthere should be no customs duties, no checks, no border security, when it goes from mainland (Azerbaijan) to Nakhchivan,\u201d adding that the Armenians should begin construction \u201cimmediately at their own expense.\u201d <\/p>\n
Aliyev said he had no plans to occupy Armenian territory, stressing \u201cif we wanted, we would have done it.\u201d But, at the same event, he said that the territory had been \u201ctaken\u201d from Azerbaijan in 1920 under Soviet rule, and warned Armenia \u201cwe have more historical, political and legal rights to contest your territorial integrity.\u201d <\/p>\n
Anna Ohanyan, a senior scholar in the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Aliyev\u2019s rhetoric had been tempered since the announcement of the prisoner exchange, but \u201cthis is largely due to a strong pushback from the US.\u201d <\/p>\n
Karabakh Armenians always knew they were caught in the crosshairs of great-power conflict. But, after 30 years of relative peace, they were not expecting things to fall apart so quickly. As a new year beckons, they look ahead to an uncertain future, bereft of homes, possessions, and livelihoods. <\/p>\n
\u201cI understand it\u2019s a big game with big countries involved: Russia\u2019s interests, Turkey\u2019s interests, Azerbaijan being a player between all these, Armenia being too weak to withstand. I understand it globally,\u201d said Poghosyan. \u201cBut on the level of 100,000 people, it\u2019s a tragedy.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Standing on the deserted streets of Nagorno-Karabakh on the 20th anniversary of his inauguration, Azerbaijan\u2019s Ilham Aliyev said he had achieved the \u201csacred goal\u201d of his presidency: reclaiming the land taken from his father. Azerbaijan had for decades been haunted by the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, a tiny Caucasian enclave home to one of the world\u2019s <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":13291,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shareperformanceinsight.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}